The personal is the political

I don't care for identity politics, left or right or ambidextrous. What I am going on is the fact that we're in a big hole right now, economically, politically, morally, and environmentally. One side seems to think that the answer to getting out of our hole is a bigger shovel. The other side, while it is not the answer to all my political prayers, does seem to have the flexibility not to continue the failures and fiascos of the past eight years. In other words, McCain is essentially handcuffing himself to ideology, especially with his stance on taxes and on Iraq. Obama at least presents a different path, one which is more likely to take changing realities into account instead of blindly resorting to force and debt. Also, I didn't reject Hillary because she was a woman. I voted against her because it was hard for her to make the case that she had real experience, and showed faulty political instincts, not least on wanting to appear Sonny Corleone-tough on Iraq.

Nobody saw it coming? Actually, Rod, many people saw it coming.
Drew Westen wrote a great book recently, "The Political Brain". He wrote that, with the exception of Bill Clinton, the Republicans, since Reagan, have been better at putting up the candidate who is "like me" whom "I can trust". Our present campaign is not some stunning reversal. I still maintain that Identity Politics is hogwash. Clinton's ability to feel everyone's pain (and a good deal else, unfortunately) never moved me, but I supported him. Likewise, Obama's "Yes, we can!" has seemed not only odd to me, but I think the candidate himself is a bit uncomfortable with it. I find Obama's aloofness counfounding and irritating at the same time, and McCain seems like a pretty good guy whom it might be fun to sit around in one of his homes or three and raise a glass with him of whatever his income level drinks. Palin just irritates me, but, hey, that's the breaks. I'm even willing to admit that somewhere under all that shilling is someone who might be likeable. And it all amounts to... nothing. I think McCain really is a maverick, and like gadflies, mavericks can sometimes be effective when stinging from the outside, but they don't wear well on the inside, so I don't think he would be effective governing. I doubt that Palin would have any pull or influence whatsover in that area, so she's a nonentity. I support Obama because I support his policies and I think he would do a better job of governing. Sometimes it's really not about he game. It's about substance. I think that's the case on both sides, actually, but there are just enough wingnuts who prefer Palin's glasses or Obama's flourishes. I just hope we have more wingnuts than you.

Rod, what you say is true regarding people wanting to sense that a candidate can 'sense' their realities and shares their sense of the world. But, in these last days, I have seen no few euphoric that Sarah Pailin is a mother from a small town who was on the P.T.A. and has had issues with her family and crises such as they. It has been like wow at last, there is a person I can identify with. When all that is great but we are at war, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are being bailed and tomorrow, on the heels of Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers is to follow. Banks are closing...Wash. Mutual is the next on the ropes. The housing crisis is enormous, unprecedented. You know the litany.

So hearing that Palin 'is a mother' when so is every other woman involved in this campaign even peripherally...including Cinday McCain and Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama…and on and on...makes me squirm. It is like people need to believe that their deepest insecurities are at last vetted by a candidate..in this case by one who is a two-months-from-election novice by any estimate.

It has never occurred to me to ask if the candidates I vote for understand how it feels to have grown up in Dallas and been through the kind of things I’ve experienced. You think I’m going to latch on to a candidate because they had, like me, an Aunt Blanche? I chose to not have children. Does that mean I should l ‘identify with’ Ralph Nadar? I just expect the candidates to excel throughout their working and private lives. And going to Harvard is not something I am going to hold against a person any more than I would denigrate not applaud someone simply because they are from a small town in Alaska. Just show me your stuff. The real stuff, not the fluff. This is the presidency. In 2008 when the world is in peril and we are in enormous debt facing catastrophy. (I learned that part reading Rod Dreher).

I'm one of a small group of people called libertarian Democrats. The main political figure I identify with is probably Gov. Schweitzer of Montana. Even though he's one of the few people who identifies with my agenda, I'll have no problem criticizing him if he does something wrong or I disagree with him. I'm mainly interested in developing an agenda and set of ideas that I feel comfortable defending. That's more important in the long run than individuals in my estimation.

I support Sen. Obama, but have no problem admitting his failures or weaknesses.

In the long run, in order to really improve our country, I believe that groups like mine, who are willing to reach across party lines and rely on ideas to build coalitions, are essential.

I agree with what you've written, the personal often overshadows principles and ideas, but still believe, in the long run, ideas and principles are more important. They're what interest me.

By the way, I read your blog precisely because I find that you have a similar emphasis on ideas and principles.

I feel the same way about Palin as I do about Obama. I can relate to both of them on a visceral level. Both are exciting, new political personalities with admirable qualities and lots of potential. Neither are ready for the presidency IMO. Yes I know Palin is running for VP but given McCAin's age and public slip-ups where he seems to forget things it's very likely she could end up stepping in for him.

I'm not excited about any of our choices this year and at this late stage in the campaign season have absolutely NO IDEA who I'm going to vote for in November.

I agree with Bill Maher when he says: "I want somebody smarter than me to be the president." I'm tired of the identity politics and the imaginary possibility of having a beer/barbecue with the prez.
Actually, I think lots of Democrats supported Obama because he was against Iraq, while campaigning for Senate 4 years ago, when it wasn't a popular thing to do.
And no, McCain hasn't really been a maverick against GOP corruption these last 7 odd years. What's really amazing is that he flip-flopped on torture after being a POW himself.
What cheeses the left off about Sarah Palin is that she's George W. Bush in a dress.

When all that is great but we are at war, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are being bailed and tomorrow, on the heels of Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers is to follow. Banks are closing...Wash. Mutual is the next on the ropes. The housing crisis is enormous, unprecedented. You know the litany.

So hearing that Palin 'is a mother' when so is every other woman involved in this campaign even peripherally...including Cinday McCain and Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama…and on and on...makes me squirm. It is like people need to believe that their deepest insecurities are at last vetted by a candidate..in this case by one who is a two-months-from-election novice by any estimate.

This is it exactly. Palin goes beyond identity politics--which conservatives have always been quite good at--and into a whole other world. People didn't really go around saying, "I'm going to vote for Clinton because I can relate to her being the scorned woman" or say "I'm going to vote for Barack because I can relate to his childhood and his perfect familylife." The Palin worship--because it so short on policy and substance--has this "I view myself as a victim and therefore I can relate to her because she affirms the things that I believe people look down on me for."

You didn't see this kind of reaction to Mike Huckabee, who is the embodiment of the social conservative identity politics. This goes into a whole other realm of adoration and, quite frankly, denial. No one is allowed to raise questions. Anyone who questions her is a bully and has an agenda.

If people who mindlessly support Barack Obama are called Obamabots, should people who mindlessly support Sarah Palin be called Palindrones?

Rod:

There is a fundamental difference between voting on the basis of receiving goodies for your identity vs. voting for someone because they share the same worldview you as you do, which includes the belief no one should receive goodies for their identity.

The other aspect of identifying with Palin has to do with the way she has been treated and disrespected in ways that would have been unimaginable if she were a liberal man with a similar personality and story. That candidate would be portrayed as the next Lech Walesa. For me, the attacks about the church tape were the last straw. Although I am Catholic, I was an Evangelical Protestant for nearly 30 years and went to churches very much like Palin's. The dripping condescension unleashed against Palin's religious expression would have been instantly and promptly condemned if it were a Muslim candidate. We would have been told to be "more understanding" and to set aside our "western prejudices" and the like. There would be front cover stories in Time and Newsweek about "Understanding Differences" and reports of a few "hate crimes" here and there, with the veracity of the "victims" assumed without question or press investigation.

No Rod, what the Palin candidacy has brought out is the deep abiding hatred that has been percolating the beneath the surface for over a generation by intellectually-overrated elites who know far less than they think they know.

BTW, were we told this morning that Senator Claire McCaskill, an Obama surrogate who appeared on one of the news shows today, was last year disinvited to speak by her daughter's diocesan Catholic school because of McCaskill's views on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, even though McCaskill was on this show precisely to attack McCain/Palin's view on abortion. (And, of course, McCaskill lied by saying that to Palin supports imprisoning raped pregnant women who seek abortions. I doubt she'll go to confession for that this week.) No, we didn't. Why? Because that would have hurt Obama/Biden with Catholics.

I agree with Bill Maher when he says: "I want somebody smarter than me to be the president."

Posted by: Brian aka New Age Cowboy | September 14, 2008 6:44 PM

Brian, you may be sincere in that wish, but I'd wager Bill Maher doesn't actually believe such a person exists.

I guess if your greatest desire is to see your tribe win, the natural thing is to project that desire on the other side (who are, of course, all associated with Kos).

Good luck with all that. And promise to not complain about the government you may get: it's well deserved.

"Questions become hate. Raising concerns becomes hate. Anyone who asks questions about the person who could become vice president is an "intellectually-overrated elite[]." Never have so many privileged. powerful people felt so victimized."

Questions are fine. I encourage them. But questions about a prayer in a church that the questioner himself doesn't even get right? Please. That's just sloppy.

I wish she had said, "Charlie, do you think it's wrong for a political leader to ask God's direction?"

Obama supporter's transformation into ears-back, fangs-bared werewolves-with-rabies at the site of Sarah Palin, her non-euthanized infant child, et al only demonstrates how deeply invested the Democratic party is itself in precisely the kind of identity politics that -- yes -- McCain's pick of Palin represents.

As I've discussed on another thread, the Republican party is the party of mostly-white, mostly-Christian, mostly-heterosexual people, mostly married or hoping to marry, mostly parents or hoping to have children, most of whom either live or hope to live outside of major urban hubs, in suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and in the country -- and this is regardless of whether they live in a red state or a blue.

The Democratic party by contrast is everyone else -- most non-whites, most non-Christians, most homosexuals, most people who do not want to marry or have children, most people who either live or want to live in major urban hubs -- and, again, this is regardless of whether they live in a red state or a blue.

The Democrats' heterogenous support base contains somewhat more people than the Republican's more homogenous support base does, but the Republicans' support base consists of by far the largest single demographic group in the society and the one that makes the strongest contribution to our national life, for better or worse.

The various niche-groups that make up the Democratic base have very little in common other than *not* being part of the Republican base.

Therefore, since Democratic party unity and left-liberal identification is so tenuous and gimrack a contraption, it is necessary to shore up a sense of solidarity that is never and never can be very solid by recourse to demagogic attacks upon the demonized "other" -- ergo the constant undercurrent in Democratic and left-liberal rhetoric of hostility toward Middle America in general and toward someone like Sarah Palin in particular.

McCain's pick of Sarah Palin was a master-stroke of positive identity-enforcement among the Republican base.

The attacks on Palin by the mandarin-caste -- on "behalf" of the Democratic base more generally -- are a classic example of the kind of negative identity-enforcement on which the left depends and will continue to depend, with the eclipse of the Marxist ideology that formerly held out hope for a leftist majority, instead of a leftist coalition of otherwise incongruous minorities.

Both the left and the right depend upon and cultivate ressentiment to shore up their bases of support.

But increasingly the left is more dependent than the right on ressentiment, which helps to explain why the left's attacks on Sarah Palin have been so very much more vitriolic than the right's attacks on Barack Obama have (so far) been and why their implications extend so far beyond Palin herself and evince so much hostility, not only toward Palin, but also toward those who can identify with her.

It is much easier for example, to imagine the right embracing African-American leaders -- witness Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice -- than it is to imagine the left embracing as a leader an evangelical or a pentecostal Christian or a pro-life Christian of any conceivable sort.

It is likewise hard now to imagine the left embracing as leaders any of the Middle-American and frequently Southern figures who served as Democratic presidents since World War Two: no more Harry S Truman, no more Lyndon Johnson, no more Jimmy Carter, no more Bill Clinton.

Even Franklin Roosevelt -- honorary citizen of Warm Springs, Georgia -- would be suspect, as would the unashamedly Catholic and anticommunist John F. Kennedy, a figure much too far to the right to ever pass muster with Move-On.org, Daily Kos, the New York Times, The Daily Show, or MSNBC.

We live in interesting -- and frightening -- times.

Rufus,
That was quite a rant. I'm white, Christian, happily married, live in the suburbs, have two kids. I'm a Democrat. Oddly, I know three other people just like me who are also Democrats. Go figure.

We all can argue about who's the best choice for president and vice-president until we're blue in the face and it doesn't matter a whit. What we as voters are asked to do is pick a leader of the national government and that's not a scientific exercise. We use the candidates' past accomplishments and experiences as a guide but those accomplishments and experiences are nothing more than an aid to what amounts to a scientific wild-assed guess.

Leadership ability is not something that can be bought or taught (although it certainly can be molded and honed as the members of our military show every day). Either you have leadership ability or you don't - and whether or not someone has it has nothing to do with where he or she went to school. Our history is replete with presidents who's leadership looked great on paper and turned into disasters: Herbert Hoover was considered an engineering genius and the man who directed relief operations in Europe after World War I - yet he was also the man who turned a recession into the Great Depression. Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the Naval Academy and a nuclear engineer (hmmm, I notice a trend with engineers . . .) and considered by all accounts to be one of the smartest men to live in the White House - yet he was a complete naif in regard to how the world really works. Yet for every Hoover and Carter, we seems to come up with a Truman or Reagan, men from modest beginnings, who nonetheless possess remarkable leadership skills.

So we really don't know what kind of leaders Obama or McCain or Palin or Biden will turn out to be, we can only guess. I feel that McCain and Palin are the far better leaders - but that's all it is, a feeling. Others feel the same way about Obama and Biden and that's fine too. But we all delude ourselves if we think we KNOW for certain one ticket will be better leaders than the other.

"Because of Sarah Palin -- there can be no other explanation -- John McCain is now polling ahead of Barack Obama, with 51 days left till the vote. Did anybody expect that?"

McCain is getting almost precisely the convention bump that electoral models based on previous elections (538.com, for example) predict.

I would, however, say that without the Palin pick, McCain would not likely have gotten a full bump. Gustave almost wrecked the whole comvention by delaying it, but not having enough real effect for McCain to make a gesture out of downplaying it and appearing in Louisiana. The excitement and interest that Palin generated took that near disaster and turned it around brilliantly.

I wouldn't overstate her effect, however. Believe it or not, it was McCain's speech that appealed to many centrists.

steve,

I should mention what some of the factors are that come into play most often -- note the word *most* -- when people identify against type politically in the particular way that you do.

One is employment in a non-governmental job that requires union membership.

Another is employment by some level of government.

Each of those correlates strongly to voting Democratic -- for obvious reasons in the latter case, though for ones less clear (other than habit) in the former, since Democrat's policies tend to hurt blue collar workers as much or more than Republicans' do, especially in the long as opposed to the short run.

Something like 80% of Americans are Christians. If only a few narrow groups of Christians voted Democratic, there wouldn't be much of a Democratic Party.

Given how many atheists I know who lap up Ayn Rand, I wouldn't count the 15% or so of Americans who are irreligious for the Democratic Party, either.

So here's an honest question (you'll have to take my word for it) for those who have no qualms about McCain's betting on the culture war rather than on the merits of his policies:

Is there no cost/downside to this? In other words, if he wins, is there a cost in governing that McCain (and the country?) will have to pay for this mode of winning?

I'd like to know and this is as good a place as any to ask. And -- if you're wondering -- I have absolutely no idea what answers I'll get.

Is there no cost/downside to this? In other words, if he wins, is there a cost in governing that McCain (and the country?) will have to pay for this mode of winning? I second ChuckDFW's most excellent question. Answers, anyone?

The quoted columnist says, Most of us, when we're asked whether the ends justify the means, tend to reply, "Well, it depends, doesn't it? What end? What means?" My answer to this question is that the means are the ends. Or, as Jesus once said, "For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return." (Luke 6:38--check it out.)

Actually I predicted that McCain would be where he is now no matter who his VP choice would be simply because of demographics. And the 11 million new voters won't help Obama very much because they are largely confined to states that Obama probably would have won anyway as far as the bulk of them are concerned and there aren't enough of them go around to influence any of the other states so as far as the electoral college goes they are absolutely irrelevant. The McCain people, on the other hand, while registering fewer new voters, are picking up enough of them in swing states to make a difference if the election is close enough.

It is not where the raw numbers of votes are. What matters is where they are and how much influence they have in each state and the size of the state.

I think that McCain will face intense pressure from within his party to cut taxes, to resist and undermine environmental protections, and to keep up, if not expand, the military presence in the Middle East. One writer over at American Conservative argues that the Neocons will probably make a comeback with a McCain administration, whereas Bush developed the prudence to marginalize them.

Now, it cannot be ruled out that McCain might act like a statesman in this situation, using tough talk in order to leverage diplomatic approaches to our foreign policy problems. But I'm not holding my breath, given his statements, which give fuel to the belief that the only way to deal with an intractable foreign policy crisis is to widen it, i.e. throw fire on gasoline.

Can any of the McCain/Palinites tell us what they expect from a McCain administration? I've seen a lot of cheering and jeering here, mostly for Palin, but not much red meat, or even an odd potato, about what he and she might do, and what you think he and she will do well. They might give the Left spasms of rage, but that's nothing new. Do you believe he'll fix the deficit with two wars (and possibly more on the way)? Do you think McCain will take on the corporate establishment and lead us to the promised land of energy independence? Will McCain do anything to make the country's economy more competitive against the challenges of a rising China/India/Brazil? Please, enlighten us skeptics...

Instead they were jokingly acknowledging that liberal form (going to farmers markets, for example) so often merges into liberal substance, as is made obvious in the bedrock liberal principle of of identity politics.

So the problem is that sincere conservatives who have genuine concerns about factory farming risk tainting the conservative "brand" by going to farmers markets?

Richard

"Can any of the McCain/Palinites tell us what they expect from a McCain administration?" PA

TR: Moderating the Left-wing excesses of a Democratic Congress. Trying to reduce the deficit. (Yeah he says he wants to maintain all these tax cuts, but I think what that's going to mean is he'll phase them out slowly. True that's not what he said, but he's saying whatever he thinks he needs to in order to win the election.) Maintaining a tough stance on some situations that need a tough stance, but not actually going to war with anyone because that'd be too hard to justify to Congress.

"Counting on a politician to lie in exactly the way you hope he will makes the fools look like sages" H

TR: I'm not counting on it, but it seems plausible to me. He wasn't really for the Bush taxcuts until he started running. His overall record I think gives some justification to the idea that he generally favors balancing the budget to tax cuts. Even if he does mean this tax-cutting mania I don't think it'd be a total disaster.

And the Democratic Congress supported a war, when? Are you counting Kosovo as a war? Or do you mean the Gulf War back during Bush Sr.? Because the Congress wasn't Democratic in 2003 and the majority of House Democrats voted against "Authorizing the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq" as did 42% of Democratic Senators.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/107/house/2/votes/455/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/107/senate/2/votes/237/

Perhaps our nation is learning the hard way that identity politics lead to superficial, bad choices. My friends who were rah-rahing for Obama are now getting to know what it's like to be on the receiving end because of all the pro-Palin hysteria. I just hope we don't have to suffer through another "Great Depression" (or WWIII) because of it.

I'm supporting Obama, but only because I think he is the lesser of two ills. I'm starting to think that cynicism would serve us better in the long run than idealism.

Bosh. Obama's program was no different from Hillary Clinton's, and is pretty standard Democratic fare.

Um, yeah. Which is why he had a long and difficult battle for the nomination, and eventually won it, everyone basically admits, not because he was better, but because Hillary's campaign kept making mistakes and her unavoidable baggage.

And Democrats should be excited about actually electing a Democrat with 'standard Democratic fare', after having to put up with 'triangulation' Bill Clinton (who often managed to triangulate issues right off the board, like health care) and decades of Republican misrule.

The thing you must understand about us Democrats: We're not divided into 6 warring factions, but actually standing here with actual policies that basically the whole party is behind. I know it sounds odd to you Republicans, but, the fact that the entire Democratic party basically wants the same thing and thus ends up with candidates all promising the same thing and is happy no matter who ends up nominated...well, that's only a weakness if you're crazy. It is, in fact, a strength.

And, incidentally, McCain's bounce is normal post-convention bounce. If you don't realize that, you're going to be crushingly disappointed as 'inverviews from Palin' results in McCain slipping in the polls, when in reality they will have little to do with each other.

My attraction to Obama has something to do with identity politics, but I think this all tied into worldview which ties into policy. He's like me in several ways, he's multiracial and has spent several years abroad, including a few in his childhood. His worldview is big enough that he understands what things are like for the rest of the world, and how policies work out in other countries. I think he would understand viscerally the impact of war on a country's people. For him, they aren't imaginary invisible beings, but very imaginable people. His empathy extends to the rest of the world. They may not get a vote, but our policies will impact them greatly. They matter, morally and ethically.

This is why I hope that Obama would build bridges rather than burn them. Our military is the best funded on earth, and I can tell you personally that the men and women I serve with are the country's best men and women, bar none. But we can't be the sum total of U.S. foreign policy. Diplomacy prevents wars, and therefore saves American (and foreign) lives. For this reason, I am generally in favor of it.

Once we are IN a war, it's all in. Choose wisely.